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Bas C. van Fraassen

Bio: Bas C. van Fraassen is an academic researcher from San Francisco State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Philosophy of science & Empiricism. The author has an hindex of 42, co-authored 163 publications receiving 11553 citations. Previous affiliations of Bas C. van Fraassen include Indiana University & University of California.


Papers
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Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.
Abstract: In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.

3,468 citations

Book
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a new epistemology based on belief as rational but lawless: Inference to the best explanation: Salvation by Laws? Towards a new Epistemology What if there are no laws? A manifesto.
Abstract: Introduction Part I: Are there laws of nature? What are the laws of nature? Ideal science: David Lewis's account of laws Necessity, worlds, and chance Universals: Laws grounded in nature Part II: Belief as rational but lawless: Inference to the best explanation: Salvation by Laws? Towards a new epistemology What if there are no laws? A manifesto Part III: Symmetry as guide to theory: Introduction to the Semantic approach Symmetry arguments in science and metaphysics Symmetries guiding modern science Part IV: Symmetry and the illusion of logical probability: Indifference: The symmetries of probability Symmetries of probability kinematics Notes Bibliography Index

1,422 citations

Book
14 Nov 1991
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a modal interpretation of quantum mechanics EPR and question of interpretation: when is a correlation not a mystery? the problem of identical particles indentical particles - individuation and modality.
Abstract: Part 1 Determinism and inderterminism in classical perspective: determinism indeterminism and probability. Part 2 How the phenomena demand quantum theory: the empirical basis of quantum theory new probability models and their logic. Part 3 Mathematical foundations: the basic theory of quantum mechanics composite systems, interaction, and measurement. Part 4 Questions of interpretation: critique of the standard interpretation modal interpretation of quantum mechanics EPR - when is a correlation not a mystery? the problem of identical particles indentical particles - individuation and modality.

588 citations

Book
01 Apr 2002
TL;DR: Van Fraassen, one of the world's foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition.
Abstract: What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world's foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy.

443 citations

Book
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: The picture theory of science as discussed by the authors is a theory of representation of, representation as and representation as 1.1 Representation of, Representation as 1: Imaging, Picturing, and Scaling 1.2 The Problem of Coordination 2.3 Pictorial Perspective and the Indexical 2.4 Measurement as Representation (2) Information 3.1 Appearance vs. Reality in the Sciences 4.2 Rejecting the Appearance from Reality Criterion
Abstract: Preface Introduction: the 'picture theory of science' PART ONE: REPRESENTATION 1.1 Representation of, Representation as 1.2 Imaging, Picturing, and Scaling 1.3 Pictorial Perspective and the Indexical PART TWO. WINDOWS, ENGINES, AND MEASUREMENT 2.1 A Window on the Invisible World (?) 2.2 The Problem of Coordination 2.3 Measurement as Representation (1) The Physical Correlate 2.4 Measurement as Representation (2) Information PART THREE. STRUCTURE AND PERSPECTIVE 3.1 From the Bildtheorie of science to paradox 3.2 The Longest Journey: Bertrand Russell 3.3 Carnap's Lost World and Putnam's Paradox 3.4 An Empiricist Structuralism PART FOUR. APPEARANCE AND REALITY 4.1 Appearance vs. Reality in the Sciences 4.2 Rejecting the Appearance from Reality Criterion APPENDICES BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES

419 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
04 Feb 1994-Science
TL;DR: Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique.
Abstract: Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic.

2,909 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper argues that the field of explainable artificial intelligence should build on existing research, and reviews relevant papers from philosophy, cognitive psychology/science, and social psychology, which study these topics, and draws out some important findings.

2,585 citations

01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general relativity, from which the conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics can be deduced.
Abstract: The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious questions about the meaning of the present formulation and interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied to so fundamental a structure as the space-time geometry itself. This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics. It presents a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general relativity. The aim is not to deny or contradict the conventional formulation of quantum theory, which has demonstrated its usefulness in an overwhelming variety of problems, but rather to supply a new, more general and complete formulation, from which the conventional interpretation can be deduced. The relationship of this new formulation to the older formulation is therefore that of a metatheory to a theory, that is, it is an underlying theory in which the nature and consistency, as well as the realm of applicability, of the older theory can be investigated and clarified.

2,091 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The computational approach to fuzzy quantifiers which is described in this paper may be viewed as a derivative of fuzzy logic and test-score semantics.
Abstract: The generic term fuzzy quantifier is employed in this paper to denote the collection of quantifiers in natural languages whose representative elements are: several, most, much, not many, very many, not very many, few, quite a few, large number, small number, close to five, approximately ten, frequently, etc. In our approach, such quantifiers are treated as fuzzy numbers which may be manipulated through the use of fuzzy arithmetic and, more generally, fuzzy logic. A concept which plays an essential role in the treatment of fuzzy quantifiers is that of the cardinality of a fuzzy set. Through the use of this concept, the meaning of a proposition containing one or more fuzzy quantifiers may be represented as a system of elastic constraints whose domain is a collection of fuzzy relations in a relational database. This representation, then, provides a basis for inference from premises which contain fuzzy quantifiers. For example, from the propositions “Most U's are A's” and “Most A's are B's,” it follows that “Most2 U's are B's,” where most2 is the fuzzy product of the fuzzy proportion most with itself. The computational approach to fuzzy quantifiers which is described in this paper may be viewed as a derivative of fuzzy logic and test-score semantics. In this semantics, the meaning of a semantic entity is represented as a procedure which tests, scores and aggregates the elastic constraints which are induced by the entity in question.

1,736 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an alternative solution to the agent-structure problem, adapted from "structuration theory" in sociology, can overcome these inadequacies by avoiding both the reduction of system structures to state actors in neorealism and their reification in world-system theory.
Abstract: While neorealism and world-system theory both claim to be “structural” theories of international relations, they embody very different understandings of system structure and structural explanation. Neorealists conceptualize system structures in individualist terms as constraining the choices of preexisting state agents, whereas world-system theorists conceptualize system structures in structuralist terms as generating state agents themselves. These differences stem from what are, in some respects, fundamentally opposed solutions to the “agent-structure” or “micromacro” problem. This opposition, however, itself reflects a deeper failure of each theory to recognize the mutually constitutive nature of human agents and system structures—a failure which leads to deep-seated inadequacies in their respective explanations of state action. An alternative solution to the agent-structure problem, adapted from “structuration theory” in sociology, can overcome these inadequacies by avoiding both the reduction of system structures to state actors in neorealism and their reification in world-system theory. Structuration theory requires a philosophical basis in scientific realism, arguably the “new orthodoxy” in the philosophy of natural science, but as yet largely unrecognized by political scientists. The scientific realist/structuration approach generates an agenda for “structural-historical” research into the properties and dispositions of both state actors and the system structures in which they are embedded.

1,460 citations